


I. Allegro con molto brio

by Ghostcat



Series: Piano Sonata in G Major, "Pense-bête" [3]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, Development, Experimental Style, Exposition, F/M, First Love, Formative Experience, M/M, Music, Non-Linear Narrative, Omniscient Narrator, Sonata Structure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-07-12 02:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15985265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: Sometimes we have to back to go forwards. Elio, Oliver, the days and years prior to meeting again; a piano sonata touching on themes of Fortuna and Time.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Pense-bête is based off of sonata structure and part one is the "exposition" section. It introduces the themes and gives us the main motif we'll be returning to. While this is the first part, it is perhaps best read as the third in the series as it can only make sense after reading Parts II and III.

   Stop. Count to four. Let’s go back the beginning.

   Most of us see time as a triad: past, future, and present. The first is vast because it holds everything that has ever occurred, the next is even vaster—all that will ever happen. The latter, though, is tricky; made up of a fleeting moment that is gone as soon as it’s experienced. And yet, that tiny sliver of time is happening to everyone and everything constantly, right at this very moment. It cannot be denied or rewritten because neither foresight or hindsight can touch it. We can interpret once it has ceased to be.

   We think forward so we can plan. We go back, so we can see.

   In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. It was constructed ostensibly to keep "the Fascist element" out of East Germany, but really it was built to stem the flood of defectors. _Past._ Years later, a general made an ill-considered late-day announcement about how all checkpoints would cease to be monitored, allowing residents from either side to come and go as they pleased. This new freedom would begin at midnight. _Future._ What he didn’t consider were the revelers who started surrounding the walls as soon as the announcement aired. They had champagne, they had pickaxes, they sang. And then, the moment the clock struck midnight, they struck that wall. _Present._

   Nearly 4000 miles away, and nearly a month past that midnight, in a slightly run-down neighborhood full of surprise pockets of grandeur, a young man plays the piano. He is playing something he’s written as a reminder of past feeling, with the idea that upon completion, it will lead him to the next course of his future. He has no idea that in a few hours, he will face the now. Not as death, which is the usual instigator, but the other experience that keeps us most tied to the present moment—love.

   Not so far as Germany, in fact, much closer, another man stares at the sky from the darkness of his driveway. He is deciding; unaware that he has already decided. Two of his fingers stroke his chin.

   Past, future and now. Humans are all, always, dancing with time. And since so many important decisions are made during the fleeting, slippery present, knowledge of when to grasp an experience, live it, can elude even the bravest.

   Often, in life stories, people say things like ‘If only,’ as though outcomes were based on singular choices rather than an accumulation. I missed the train, therefore I didn’t get the job. I was late to the party, so I didn’t get to kiss the girl. I met him at the wrong time. We weren’t ready, I wasn’t ready, how could we have known?

   The truth is that there is no right or wrong time. For anything. There are only the limitations we place on ourselves because of time, and possibilities, when we think it’s on our side. But it’s not time that’s on our side, or rather time is always on our side. What’s sometimes missing is chance, _Fortuna_ , which colludes with moments to create the illusion of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ times.

   People seize their moment, others hold it. Claim they're fine with just that: the brief time of having before it's lost.

   A moment, however, can exist outside of time. Because it’s part of the Now, making it almost irrelevant to time passing. These moments imprint themselves in our memories, become markers of the present. A kiss against an old wall in a foreign city, an unexpected phone call on a cold day, an inscription in a book that, when read, makes the world shift. The Biblioteca Vallicelliana, where the silence is a silken-velvet hush but everyone, or nearly everyone, has music playing loudly in their heads. A bride in a meringue-like wedding dress and a groom in a powder blue suit, dancing next to a stairwell at City Hall; the paucity of words.

   But is that jumping ahead? Or lagging behind? The present isn't even that. The present shifts.

   This is the story, a piece of music really—a sonata, of two men, Oliver and Elio, who thought time was their antagonist. It isn’t, wasn’t, won’t be. Because time has no vested interest in result. Time is the foundation, and everything we build on top of it is ours alone.

   For most of this sonata, now is Thursday evening, followed by some post-midnight Friday. The quiet pre-dawn hours after a snowstorm. A hectic pre-weekend afternoon. But now-now is also Thursday morning. In Brooklyn, NY. Two blocks from the Clinton-Washington stop on the A-train. On a pretty, slightly rundown block lined with brownstones. In the late ‘80s, winter.

   But that is the Past. Let’s call it the Past.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there is a rollover feature on the non-English text—move your cursor over it and the translation will pop up. This does not work on mobile unfortunately. :/
> 
> The narrator for these chapters is neither Elio or Oliver. 
> 
> Since this is the 'Exposition' part of the sonata, it is heavy on the exposition. Infodump alert! My apologies.

   It took nearly ten minutes for the young woman to find her keys at the very bottom of her purse. Past the gum packet, several pens, another set of keys, unopened mail, and a small, zippered bag containing her make-up. The bag had opened accidentally and the cap to her lipstick had fallen off so when she removed her hand from her purse, holding the keys triumphantly aloft, her knuckles were streaked burgundy-red. She groaned and focused on finding the right key for the vestibule entrance, trying nearly all of them before she succeeded.

   Names are important. The girl had one but this isn’t her story. Or her house. At least, it isn’t yet.

   The key-noise was quiet; pins aligning smoothly, all give. The house door opened inward like a whisper.

   There were several supermarket shopping bags lined up next to her on the stoop, and she entered the foyer carrying all of them at once, stopping to wipe her feet on the doormat with two emphatic swipes. She coughed, aggressively; the phlegmy gristle of it echoed like an announcement, exactly as intended. She was making sure, if there happened to be anyone in the house besides the owner—that they were alerted to her presence and would behave appropriately. Or, at the very least, get dressed.

   Her present self wished for many things, and one was not having to converse with a half-nude stranger. An unfortunately common occurrence in this house; at least three times in recent memory. For her, it wasn’t the visual that made her uncomfortable but the small talk; the jarring way the combination of bared skin and coffee made those strangers her intimates.

   As soon as the bags were deposited in the kitchen, she took off her coat and hung it in the front closet, stuffing her hat and scarf briskly into the arm, all the while looking around—inspecting the area for proof of presence. At the hallway, the living room where a grand piano stood, a sitting room with only a large standing cabinet in the corner, angled slightly out. Past it towards a dining room area, where the only signs of life were two books stacked on the table and a glass of water with one swallow left.

   And there it was.

   Other than that, the house was clean. Spartan. And it continued to be quiet. Her round-toed boots had rubber soles with a tendency to squeak, making her footfall sound smudgy. She wrestled them off and put them in the closet as well.

   There were groceries to put away in the kitchen, and once there, she worked quickly and seriously. Pressed her lips together until they disappeared into a pale, thin line; a visual underscore to the paper-and-plastic rustling sounds, the soft thud of a milk carton on the countertop. Her thin hands were efficient. Once everything was out of the bags and in the fridge, she stood in front of the espresso maker, stock-still, hands at her waist, her forehead creased into two distinct lines, a tiny x between her brows. Then, with the weary sigh of someone who has had to learn something the hard way, she got the coffee going.

   She breathed in deeply.

   Up the stairs, at the start of a long, wide hall, a young man slept on a king-sized mattress on the floor, a light blue blanket covering most of his face. He was twenty-three, nearly twenty-four. His age was an important detail to him; sentimental, in that it both meant something and was felt. He was a long way from going gray—he would, eventually, many years later, one shiny hair spied in the mirror and greeted with a long _aaaaaaaah ha ha_ of laughter. Here, his curly hair was still chestnut, body wiry and long—long, sloping torso, long legs, long, high-arched feet peeking out from under the linens.

   He sighed, mid-dream, and it was just color there inside his head; no real narrative, no real understanding. His dreams were of himself and one other person. A too-fast heartbeat, the too-real feel of his hand on their skin, and happy. If it wasn’t for the smell of fresh coffee creeping up the stairs, he would have remained in that sherbet swath of blue and orange, lost to the world. But the aroma penetrated. His nostrils flared, even like this, mostly-asleep and burning for a lost love.

  The young woman's foot prodded him awake.

   “Elio.”

   He groaned.

   “Elio.”

   She pulled the blanket down to his shoulder, revealing a thin green t-shirt that looked a wash away from disintegrating entirely; it had two wide holes at the shoulder.

   “Elio. Wake up. It’s nearly eight.”

   “Va te faire foutre,” he mumbled into his arm.

   She pulled back the curtains sharply and light hit him hard in the face. “Sorry.” They stayed open, however, because, like most early risers, she was not sorry at all. Sliding further underneath the blankets, Elio curled into a ball.

   “Wake up, Elio.” Her voice was chipper and a little raspy from a cold she was just getting over. “We have to talk logistics. You need to be at FIAF by 1PM to shake hands with Cesar Pizzoli and meet with some board members. He’ll go with you to Payne Hall to check the sound, then you get a quick dinner break. I’ll order you some sushi.”

   “Order from that place we went with Elton Nestor last time,” he managed groggily.

   The young woman silently repeated the name, rolling her eyes. “Yes, boss. After the recital you’ll meet with Clem, Thaddeus, his manager and the D.G. guys at Shun Lee. The label is picking up the tab. Come on. Up.”

   Elio Perlman did not like being awakened, particularly in the middle of a dream. He’d arrived from Paris the morning prior on the red-eye, a flight during which he’d barely slept, and he only managed four hours just now. As a successful young pianist of some international renown—at least he is here, in this _now_ , there are other _nows_ where he is a writer or a professor instead but not here—he had the great fortune to employ a personal assistant who was terrifyingly efficient; and the great misfortune of being her cousin. Meaning she had no compunction about making more noise than was necessary as she moved around his bedroom. With her brusque, staccato rhythms, Dafna Fogel-Perlman was an alarm without a snooze button. Elio buried his head under the pillow and hit his head on a book. He hissed.

   “Dafna.” He said her name like a groggy reprimand, rubbing his head. He was impossible to take seriously as his words lacked authority. “Who told you to come here at-“ He reaches for his watch and peers at it. “7:15AM?”

   “You did. You asked me to wake you, so you could get in a couple of hours practice before leaving. So get up. Says you, via moi.”

   Elio uncovered his face, one visible eye squinting peevishly. “I’m awake.” He brought a finger up to the corner of his eye, and rubbed slowly while yawning. “I need to shower.”

   “They were supposed to have the beds done yesterday. Sorry about that. Bobby promises that it will be done today.”

   “S’okay. The mattress was fine. The paint in the hallway looks good, you can’t always tell from a color swatch. I like,” he yawned, “-blue.”

   “It’s more gray than blue.”

   “Whatever. I like it.” He covered his face again and yawned once more into his arm. Dafna caught his yawn and echoed it. She picked up a shirt and pants and threw them into a laundry bag hanging in the closet. Strewn about the room haphazardly were CDs, cigarettes, a heaping ashtray and sheet music, some of it half-blank; some half-filled with a series of ascending and descending triplets. She untangled a bra, pale pink and tiny, where it was wound around an extension cord and held it up to the light, admiring the lace scalloping.

   “Pretty.”

   Underneath the blanket, Elio made a grunting, noncommittal noise. Dafna picked up trash strewn around the perimeter of the bed, a smattering of unopened condoms which she stacked and placed next to the lamp, and lube spillage, which she wiped with tissues taken from a box, placing the bottle upright as she did so. Eventually moving it over to sit next to the condoms like a strange sentinel.

   “ _Probe_?” she read off the bottle. “That’s an unfortunate brand name. Sounds like it’s equating anal sex with alien abduction.”

   Elio snorted, amused despite his peevishness. “It’s one of the more edible varieties.”

   “It’s too early for this topic.” She slipped over to the bathroom, threw his trash in the wastebasket and came back to pick up the teeming ashtray, emptying its spoils into the toilet and flushed.

   “Qu'est-ce que tu fais ?” Elio yelled from his bed, rolling his shoulders. “I can clean up after myself.”

   He could, but he’d had a rough night. Somehow Dafna sensed that and ignored his protestations. Elio was, all things considered, fairly easy to work for. He was diligent and serious about his professional responsibilities, the rare artist who understood the less glamorous, day-to-day requirements of the job. She felt compelled, however, to make things harder for him. To build his character, to toughen him up. Hardly anyone told him ‘no’, and it didn’t matter how good he was inside, it was important sometimes for him to hear the word. Even if it was only for small, insignificant things. And only sometimes.

   She washed her hands, face impassive, and leaned in closer to the bathroom mirror, frowning at a pimple.

   A brightly-patterned tie hung off the towel rack. Dafna pulled it towards herself, admiring the color and pattern. She was peering at the label as she came back into the bedroom. “Do they leave their clothes here so they have a reason to come back? You have all these items that clearly don’t belong to you. I hang them in the closet of the smallest spare bedroom. You could open a thrift shop.”

   Elio sat up, rising from the covers reluctantly. The skin under his eyes looked bruised, as if he hadn’t slept in days. He stretched at the waist, to the right, then the left, ran his hands through his stringy curls and yawned. “That tie was from a few months ago. I happened to use it last night.”

   “You tied her to towel rack?”

   Elio smiled, wobbly at first, then widening into something close to humor. Dafna examined the tie.

   “If they’re not coming back, can I have it?”

   “Not coming back,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t think it’s too wide?”

   Dafna shook her head too, holding the tie to the light. “Would you call this color eggplant?”

   “Aubergine. Passe-moi mes cigarettes, s'il te plaît ?”

   He smoothed the blanket and patted it. Dafna picked up the pack and sat next to him, stretching her legs in front of herself. She pulled out a cigarette, along with an ornamental match case. The match flared with a sulfurous flash, and she shook it instead of blowing it out. Elio opened his mouth, baby-bird expectant, but Dafna didn’t pass the cigarette. She took a long drag instead, exhaling grandly, picking at pilled bits on the blanket. Elio laughed.

   “Tu devrais faire du cinéma.”

   He held up his hands, making bracket-shapes with his thumbs, pushing in for a close-up.

   Dafna regarded him carefully, like a scientist filling out the day’s report on their lab’s valuable research ape. “How are we doing, then?”

   “Could be better,” he replied with a small, tight grin, bringing up a fist to his jaw, mock-knocking himself out.

   “Everything settled in Berlin?”

   Elio closed his eyes, fighting against the memories brought on by her question. “Christian’s brother handled most of the arrangements.”

   She took another drag.

   “Have you heard from Lina?”

   “Yes. She called me around 3AM. My time, not hers. Thanks for setting up the second line.”

   “Lina called you on the batphone? Who else has the number?”

   He pointed to her. “You. Lady Wynne. Don’t tell Clem.”

   “Of course not.”

   Dafna mimed zipping her lips and locking them, throwing the ‘key’ to Elio, who pretended to catch it.

   “So Lina called you bright and early.”

   “Yes. She was already on-set in Calvi.” His voice faded—he sighed and closed his eyes. “I told her I needed some space.”

   “How much space?” Dafna’s gaze was even. “You’re on another continent.”

   He shrugged, scratching the corner of his lip, mouth shaped into a small o. “I promised to go see her after fulfilling my obligations in London. I didn’t give her any other assurances. But who knows?”

   Dafna threw a quick glance at the ceiling, and Elio, himself ambivalent about the situation, was quick to notice.

   “What?”

   “Nothing.” It was a lackluster performance.

   He read her face well, it was as transparent as his own. Then he laughed; this was one of the many ways his cousin expressed affection—benign disappointment.

   “Anyway,” he straightened. “I’m starting to get used to being alone again. Maybe solitude will stick this time, and you’ll get your wish of no more Melina.”

   Dafna took a deeper drag and the smoke curled around her face, blurring the edges of her sharp chin, drawing attention to her eyes—they were hazel, more gray than brown, infinite and patient and, in shape, very like her cousin’s. “That is not my wish.”

   Elio met her gaze calmly, once again failing to hide a smile. “Did you know smoking leads to plaque?”

   Carefully, she put the cigarette in his mouth and stood up. He smiled at her, cigarette between his teeth.

   “Merci. I knew that would work, you’re such a stickler for oral hygiene.”

   “Gross. Stop saying ‘oral’ like that.” Dafna walked over to his closet and took out his suitcase.

   “Don’t bother. I’ve already unpacked.”

   She ignored him and unzipped anyway. His suitcase was empty save for a gray sweatshirt. “I hope Pink Brassiere wasn’t a fan.”

   “Of oral hygiene?”

   “Of you, ding-dong.”

   Elio snorted. “I would never sleep with a fan. Non-negotiable.”

  “Really? Even if they were gorgeous?”

   He shook his head, lips pressed tight in a way that made him look prim. And again, his expression was like hers, though his mouth was fuller. “Noooooo. Never. Not good for business.”

   “So what was she, then?” Dafna raised an eyebrow, putting the suitcase back in the closet. “A stranger?”

   “I don’t fuck strangers. A friend of Michael’s, a gallerista. Rich and experimental.”

   “You make her sound like music.”

   “She was.”

   “Why not go to her place?”

   Elio hesitated, suddenly aware his cousin was veering dangerously near interrogation mode. He knew that dogged, open-mouthed look.

   “I was tired.” He stretched again, arms overhead, then rolled his neck, a small grimace of quasi-satisfaction passing over his face. “I want a cat. Can we pay someone to catsit when I’m not here? Or better yet, I can travel with her. Or him. Get a cat carrier. I don’t know if I want a striped kitty, or a black one.”

   “I am not doing kitty-litter business. And neither will your girlfriend, so reconsider your loneliness alleviation methods, please.”

   “Who says I’m lonely?”

   Her gaze was doleful. “Everyone is lonely. Admitting it is a sign of intelligence.”

   “I’m not lonely.”

   “Hmm.”

   Dafna picked up a bottle of cologne from the dresser and sprayed a cloud into the air, jumping underneath and waving her arms as if directing the scent onto her clothes. She wore a fitted gray dress that flared out past her hips; it was about ten years too old to be fashionable, but she considered it a uniform, in that she barely paid attention to how it looked.

   “Surely that does nothing,” Elio opined.

   She pulled her dress away from herself, airing out the torso, crinkling her nose at the less-than-satisfactory result. Elio took a deep drag and squinted at her, smoke blowing from his nostrils as he spoke.

   “How can he not smell it? He’s all over you every time you’re together.”

   Dafna scratched the tip of her nose. “Bobby has no sense of smell. He lost it in a childhood car accident. I do this...” she waved her arms again, “for me.”

   “That would make me suicidal. Not being able to smell my lover’s skin.” He tilted his head back against the wall.

   “That’s because you’re a silly, weak boy.”

   Elio laugh-snorted, honking unselfconsciously. “Brutal.”

   She inspected the bottle. “Roger and Gallet,” she read. “I like it.”

   “Me too.”

   There was another bottle, still in its box, tightly packed in cellophane. “‘Bel Ami’ by Hermès,” she read. “Did you buy these in Duty Free?”

   “Yeah, I was bored.” He snorted. “According to the saleslady, that one is supposed to smell like leather.”

   “You didn’t use the tester?”

   Elio shook his head, yawning, “I like de Maupassant. The name intrigued me.”

   She placed the box back on the dresser with a sigh. “You’ll have to tell me what congenital douchebaggery smells like. Something tells me the base notes will be ball sweat and... bullshit.”

   Dafna stooped to straighten CDs, but Elio stopped her with a raised finger and a series of tsk-ed _no’s_. She sighed, crossed her arms, and, with the air of someone assuming a role, asked, “How was your flight?”

   “Fine. I didn’t sleep, but I read the new contracts. Can you schedule a call to Peter for Monday?”

   She brightened. “Sure. Do you want to discuss the terms?”

   “No. It was all straightforward.”

   “Given any thought to Clem’s questions?”

   He nodded. “One—Yes to Salzburg, definite yes. Two? Classical at the Grammys is a loser’s game, that’s when everyone goes to take a piss.” Elio yawned. “By the way, thanks for having the heat fixed. Pour une fois, je ne me suis pas gelé le cul.”

   “You’re welcome. And no one’s going to take a pee break, it’s the ‘In Memoriam’.”

   At this, Elio finally laughed outright. “Seriously?”

   Dafna shrugged, taking his cigarette and ashing carefully into a can of seltzer next to the bed. The ash hit the bottom with a sizzle. “Three?”

   “Threeeeeee, I don’t know. I’m leaning towards something French. Maybe Satie? Is that too predictable?”

   “What about the Ives that Ferlinger wanted?”

   “ _Concord_. It’s an intriguing suggestion but—” He scrunched up his face into a malleable grimace.

   “Not you?”

   “No. Especially after all this backlash with _Notturno_. Ask me again in five years. If I’m still doing this, that is.”

   Dafna kept her eye roll in check. She was used to Elio’s pronouncements. It was all part of his process; voicing decisions as if testing them out—like a dress rehearsal that was subject to change right until curtain rise. He scrunched up his face.

   “The reviews were not as bad as you seem to think.”

   His mouth wiggled from one side to the other. “I loathe being described as ‘lyrical’.”

   “Why? You’re playing music, it _should_ be lyrical. Unless you’re playing Stockhausen or something. ‘Lyrical’ will get you a lot further in the piano repertoire than ‘percussive’.”

   “Lyrical sounds dull.” He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Unimaginative. Pedestrian. It’s dismissal disguised as weak praise. Jacques said that ‘lyricism’ easily tips towards the lachrymose. He’s not wrong.”

   “Joseph Horowitz said some incredible things about your Schubertiade performance last year. Lyricism wasn’t mentioned once.”

   He circled his wrists, hands in fists, then kept them that way. One fisted at his waist, the other in the air, fingers unfurling like a thought. “I know I’m _good_. But I’m not the best. And I,” he nods. “Would like to be the best. Is that… repugnant?”

   “Repugnant?” Dafna scowled and jerked her head back.

   “To be ambitious?”

   “No. Artists should be ambitious. Ambition requires being open to change, change keeps us relevant.”

   They stared at one another, Elio smiling and Dafna mirroring his smile. When he shifted his head left to lean on his shoulder, she did the same. He straightened and she followed. They had been playing this mirror game nearly their entire lives.

   After a minute or so, Dafna’s mouth returned to that firm, flat line. “I think _Notturno_ is stunning, and we both know my opinion is the most important.”

   “Yes. Thank you.”

   “I’ll prepare the arrangements for Salzburg.”

   “Mom and papa will want to go.” Elio smiled. “I’ll handle that. It’ll be a good anniversary gift.”

   “They’ll love it.” Dafna handed the cigarette back. “And a no to the Grammys?”

   “Not a no.” He nibbled his lower lip with his front teeth. “Why that composition though? ‘Romance Oubliée’ is beautiful, but it’s a string showcase, and not even a cello piece. I’m sure Ruvi can do a great job, but what would I bring to the table?”

   “Taste, phrasing, tone? ‘Romance Oubliée’ has become a recent favorite.”

   “Really? I didn’t know that.”

   Dafna spun around slowly on the ball of her socked foot, as if remembering a dance. “I heard Ruvi play it last year at Tanglewood. Light as air, like cream froth. No one’s recorded a cello arrangement; he needs to get on that.”

   “Who was his pianist?”

   “Sarah Thomason.”

   “Ah.” A faint spot of color rose in his cheek. “Why isn’t she playing the gig? She’s telegenic enough.”

   “He doesn’t want her.”

   Elio shaped the ash of his cigarette into a crayon point. “That’s awkward.”

   “They weren’t good together. She’s too choppy. She always plays like she’s banging cupboards open and shut to scare away the mice. You’d be better.”

   Dafna sat down on the mattress again, budging him over with her hip and pushed his hair back from his face; Elio allowed it as if he were her child, getting groomed before an important school meeting.

   “Her new Scriabin is excellent.”

   She crinkled her nose. “Meh.”

   Elio reached for Dafna’s long braid and played with the ends between his fingers. He brought it up to her chin and tickled her. Dafna didn’t blink. He smiled.

   “You know she hates me? She barely knows me. Every time I try to talk to her at these D.G. events, she just—” he blows out a puff of air, echoing the sound with a gesture of his fingers.

   “Dare I ask?”

   Elio’s mouth opened in indignation. “My interest in her is strictly professional.”

   “Sure.”

   He rolled his eyes, yawned; and in yawning, hit an unfortunate hollow-sounding note that made Dafna wince.

   “I hate when you do that.”

   “Sorry. Have you heard ‘O, pourquoi donc’? It’s a vocal piece, Liszt rewrote it for piano as ‘Romance’. It’s the blueprint for ‘Romance oubliée’.”

   “Really?”

   “It’s fascinating. He rewrote ‘Romance’ some thirty years later, retitled it ‘Forgotten Romance’ and changed the key.” He ran his finger along his bottom lip. “I’ve always wanted to know if, in the rewrite, Liszt was attempting to say: the person I wrote this for was not important enough to remember. At least not to remember correctly.”

   “Maybe he did forget.”

   “He changed the key. It’s not even the tonic. You don’t think it was deliberate? Seems deliberate.”

   “Could be. Memory is deliberate. Accurate? Not usually.”

   He made a brusque _hmmm_ noise. “I disagree. I can’t imagine forgetting my first love, not even out of spite.”

   Dafna contemplated his words. “First love? But how long ago was that? You met Lina two years ago?”

   Elio put out his cigarette, perhaps a little more vehemently than usual. Dafna noticed and brought her hand up to her mouth.

   “Oh. _Not_ Mercurial Melina? Why don’t I know this? Who else? Chris? Gaspard? Oooh, umm, that girl from Naples, what was her name? No? I know! The one that visited you in Paris, the visual artist—Berenice! She was a very good packer. I was envious of her technique. Alli? Not her, surely?”

   He stretched again, arms reaching overhead, grimacing. “Is this a game where you name every single person I’ve ever noticed? I hope not.”

   “Ugh. No. Not Billy Hart. Please, not that twerp.”

   “Why does everyone hate Billy? He’s not so bad.”

   “He sucks.”

   Elio couldn’t contain his smile.

   “Ugh.” Dafna slapped him on the arm. Her voice rose in volume as if trying on authority. “My point is that you’d remember your first love, because unlike poor syphilitic Franz, it wasn’t thirty years ago, it was two or three.”

   “Six.” He continued, smiling, though the expression fell slightly. Went from amusement to nearly nothing, tight-lipped and contained. “I was seventeen.”

   She had not known this, and found the omission interesting. “Not Lady Wynne, surely?”

   “No, not Marzia. What about you?” Elio nodded. “Tell me about your first love.”

   Dafna knew diversion when she heard it. Her first boyfriend, Ari Silberg, had been obsessed with magic, and her. He taught her card tricks, and to this day, she knew where to really look during a set-up. Elio’s expression was open, mild. Curious. His hands were curled into his sleeves; only a hint of knuckles visible.

   She decided to humor him. “I was fourteen, and at a sleepover lacrosse camp.”

   “Whaaaaat?” his mouth hung open, and he fell back against the wall, laughing. “I didn’t know you played sports.”

   “Oh yeah. I was great. The camp was in Vermont. The people that ran the place had a son, he couldn’t have been more than a year or two older. He was skinny, fair, had a strong nose.”

   “The Didi archetype.”

   “I suppose.” She grinned, a flashing grin; there and gone. “He played with us sometimes when we were short. I liked him. I liked how he looked, how he moved. He was all sharp angles. And slouchy, like a human envelope.” She shifted her shoulders forward to demonstrate. “We used to talk in the afternoons when we had free time. I don’t know how I got away from the group. I guess I was pretty good at hiding.”

   “Talk?”

   “And more. Sometimes. Up-the-skirt stuff mostly.” She wiggled her middle and index fingers and Elio laughed. “He smelled good. Like Irish Spring soap and boy sweat. That spicy, warm smell.”

   He smiled. “And?”

   “I admitted that I liked him to my friends at camp, and… I’ll never forget how they stared.” She trailed off, hand covering her open mouth. “Like I’d said I wanted to tongue kiss their fathers. I’d never had an opinion that was in opposition to theirs—that had never happened. I remember their disgusted expressions more clearly than his face. I don’t remember his face at all, honestly.”

   Elio hugged his legs to himself, resting his chin on his knees. Raising his eyebrows, he urged her to continue.

   “So I backtracked. Pretended I hadn’t understood the question. Never kissed him again.”

   “How did he kiss?”

   “With intent. But...I don’t know if it’s someone else I’m remembering.” For a drawn-out moment, she looked lost; but as quick as a question said and a question answered, her face returned to its default mildness. “I thought I loved him. Must not have been love, huh, if he was so easy to discard?”

   He rubbed his cheek against his knees. “Your memory changed the key.”

   Dafna brushed his hair back from his face again. “So who was Elli’s first love?”

   Elio closed his eyes. “Not going to tell you.”

   “Why?”

   His smile was wide and self-mocking. “Because then I’ll start thinking too much. And. I’ll change that program. And you’ll kill me.”

   “No!” she screeched, with real dismay. “You can’t change the program! Of the three, you’ll want to swap out the Debussy, and you have to do at least one French offering.”

   “Pourquoi?”

   “Pourquoi?” she parroted, rolling her eyes. “It’s the French Institute Alliance Française, it’s expected. Go shower. I’ve made coffee. Do you want a bagel?”

   “Yes, please.”

   She stroked the curls by his ear. He turned to kiss the wrist near his temple.

   “Tu m'as manque, Pal.”

   “Moi aussi.”

   The shower jets were strong and almost painful, sharp and hot at his back. Elio cut his bath short, dressed quickly in a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt printed with De La Soul. He deliberated out loud, his voice bouncing off the bare walls of the bedroom; finally decided to change clothes at home after practice, rather than at the venue before dinner. Assuming the role of visiting star took him time, still, and the longer he had to settle into it the better he’d be.

   While Dafna buttered bagels and cut up fruit in the kitchen, Elio picked up the rest of his things. In less than ten minutes, the room was tidy again; the CDs were stacked neatly against the wall, the mattress bed on the floor was made, the soft t-shirt he’d worn to bed lay folded on top of his dresser. He looked through his closet, inspecting the items he’d already hung and removing the garment bag with tonight’s suit. He was careful as he set it down, unzipping slowly and stepping back to breathe.

   The phone rang from the first floor, and he turned his head so fast he nearly passed out.

   Dafna called from below. “Elli, it’s for you. Do you have a handset upstairs?”

   “Yeah, give me a second.” He picked up the rotary phone from its place by the closet and plugged it into the wall jack, “Okay, Didi.” Dafna hung up the other line with a crisp click. He spoke into the receiver. “Hello?”

   The voice was low, husky and most welcome. “Hello, lovely.”

   A sly smile bloomed on his face. “Lady Wynne! Quelle charmante surprise. Qu'est-ce que tu deviens ? Comment ça va à Cornwall ?”

   Elio pictured his old friend, his closest friend, so much more than a friend, Marzia, standing in her green kitchen, wearing a loosely-knit cardigan and nursing a glass of wine. He pictured her hair blowing away from her face as the wind streamed in from the window, past the lavender bunch drying there.

   (He was not far off. She was in her kitchen. But she was drinking tea and wearing a bulky fisherman's sweater that belonged to her husband, who was upstairs sleeping. They were trying for a baby, and she would like to tell Elio this, but also… not. Marzia understood that Elio might not be ready for that kind of news.)

   “Pittoresque, comme toujours. Un peu chiant sans ta compagnie. Tu auras un moment pour venir nous voir ?”

   Elio continued picturing her face, letting the image soothe him.

   “Pas sûr. Je dois aller à Paris pour emballer mes affaires.”

   She hummed sympathetically. “Je vois. Tu reviens quand ?”

   “Ici ?”

   “Oui, à New York.”

   “Je reviens au nouvel an pour les dernières dates de la tournée.”

   “Et après, de retour à Paris pour le printemps ?”

   “Ouais, quand j'aurai fini. J'ai pas décidé.”

   “Tu es un garçon bien occupé. Tant de choses à faire.”

   “Cette ville me fait culpabiliser de ne pas faire grand chose par contre.”

   “Un peu trop animée, hein? Je suis submergée par toutes les options qui se présentent, mais au final je ne vais nul part, je ne parle à personne. Je suis toujours seule là-bas.”

   “You’re right. It’s lonely. Je suppose que tu ne pourrais pas venir et me rendre visite ? Dire à Lord Wynne que j’ai besoin d'aide décorer ma maison ou quelque chose comme ça ?”

   Marzia played with the cord, biting her lip. “A ce propos. Chiara était super bourrée la dernière fois qu'elle est venue nous voir et elle a décidé de lui raconter les passages les plus compliqués de notre histoire... à toi et moi. J'ai dû passer presque une semaine pour le rassurer et le convaincre que c'était de l'histoire ancienne.”

   “Ah. Eh bien, c'est dommage. Je préfère largement être vu comme l'ami d’enfance inoffensif.” He winced, bringing his hand up to his neck.

   “Si.” She paused, then sighed, missing him fiercely, all in a rush. “Je t'aime, Elio. Tu m'aimes aussi ?”

   “Tu le sais bien.”

   “Je veux te voir, quand est-ce que tu peux venir me voir ?,” she said, softer still.

   “It’s been so crazy. Je ne sais pas. Bientôt. I hope.”

   Dafna entered carrying a small cup of espresso, and a plate containing half a bagel and some fruit. He tucked the phone between his cheek and neck, taking both from her, mouthing _merci_ and going back to listening; only to cast a single, too-weighted-to-be-entirely-casual glance at Dafna, who was energetically using a lint brush on the Armani.

   Elio switched smoothly to Italian. “Ummm. Io. Ascolta… adesso non posso parlare.”

   “C’è qualcuno lì con te?” Marzia followed just as easily; changing languages was a longtime practice, depending on which company they wished to exclude. “Dafna?”

   “Si.”

   “Qualcun altr-”

   “Solo lei,” Elio said, cutting Marzia off as Dafna rifled through his closet. Removed an iron with a detached expression that he recognized as her attempt to look uninterested. “Solo lei. Sta origliando.”

   “Che peccato. Quando ti trovo da solo?”

   He smiled. “Dopo, forse.”

   “Io mi libero presto, ma per te sarà tardi. Posso chiamarti lo stesso?”

   “Sì. Assolutamente.”

   “Verso le tue 2 del mattino? O è troppo tardi?”

   “No, non è troppo tardi. Io non dormo mai.” Elio frowned. Marzia kept later hours usually. “Tu invece, perché sei già in piedi a quell’ora?”

   “Servizio fotografico per Architectural Digest. ‘Lord Wynne unveils new paintings at his bohemian oceanside home.’ Io sono l’altro accessorio, oltre agli acrilici.”

   “Ho capito.” He laughed. “L’hai decorata tu. Non si vede neanche un ritratto di cavalli in giro..”

   “True.” She breathed out softly, holding the ooo in the word.

   Dafna ironed the sleeve of his suit with angrily precise swipes. Elio raised his eyebrows. “Marz. I have to go.”

   “Ci sentiamo più tardi. Baci.”

   “Okay, Ciao.”

   The telephone made a muffled pseudo-ringing noise when he set it on the ground. He jumped and spun around deftly, catching Dafna’s flat stare.

   “What?”

   “Maybe you should learn Mandarin?”

   “I don’t know what you mean.” Elio shook his head and shrugged expansively, eyes wide. Dafna’s judgmental nature caused him no small measure of amusement.

   “I’ve given up commenting on that whole situation.” She addressed the suit, her ironing done. Grabbing the lint-brush again, she attacked the sleeves, pulling them taut for each brisk pass—as if Elio was already in it, and she was about to push him out the door. “I like these new suits more than the Miyake ones. Is Armani going to give you more for your upcoming dates?”

   “Marzia is my oldest friend.”

   Dafna hung the suit back in the garment bag. “Just avoid looking like the bad guy, please. She’s married. Her husband’s a public figure, you’re a public figure. I don’t need to remind you about the Hello! Magazine fiasco.”

   “I...” Elio gestured to himself, bringing his shoulders back. “Haven’t done anything.”

   It was an overly defensive statement, they both knew it. That didn’t stop Elio from smiling, like he had no idea what could have possibly made her think so.

   “Nothing, Didi. Not a thing.”

   She sighed, placing the suit carefully back inside its garment bag. “Any time you’re in crisis, you scurry back to Lady Wynne.”

   That stung him a bit. “It’s not like that.”

   “I know. But is nearly-chaste and certainly-co-dependent any better than an outright affair?” She pointed the lint brush at his head. “Use that brain of yours.”

   Elio wished he had a cigarette so he could put it out angrily into his ashtray, for emphasis. “Tu es pire qu'une mère parce que tu es trop jeune pour être si vieille.”

   Dafna had one foot out of the room. She stopped, turning slowly to face him.

   “That,” she breathed out, eyebrows raised. “―was a good line. I know you didn’t come up with it on your own―what novel is it from? Something French?” Dafna smiled tightly. “You should go warm up.”

   Elio let her leave ahead of him, uninterested in continuing the discussion; he knew Dafna would always get the last word. He unplugged the phone and slowly wrapped the connecting cord around it, put it back on the top shelf of his closet. He didn’t care for phones ringing in his bedroom. He didn’t care much for phones, period. It was way too easy to lie to others when you know they couldn’t see your eyes.

   After engaging in some half-hearted exercising (sit-ups and pull-ups that he should have done prior to his shower), Elio returned to the main floor. The staircase groaned under his feet, and he dug his heels in harder, loving the sound. Down the hall, Dafna spoke on the phone, probably bullying someone into something. She had a gift of persuasion that bordered on troubling. He had been on the receiving end of it more than once.

   The Wissner’s back lid was propped open, ready for him, and he slid onto the bench like a dancer—with a practiced, graceful glide. He lifted his arms up and down, shrugging his shoulders, moved his elbows back exaggerating the curve of his spine. Next came arm circles. Wrist and finger flexions. Then the anticipatory curl of his fingers over the keys, his favorite part of performance; the moment before it all begins, before a single note is played. He started with scales, followed by arpeggios and some Bach inventions, before moving into brisk Handelian improvisation. The improvisation then ceased, became fixed, transformed into the Andante section of his piece. The notes were played with feeling, emotions the musician chose not to analyze, because not enough time had passed to bring it past the now. It was still present. Memories and feelings flickered inside him, hopelessly alive, impossible to examine or extinguish.

   The next section was a dance. As familiar as a right hand, and just as repetitive. He was of mixed opinions about this section―it seemed to go on for too long, but he’d given up hope of being able to fix the problem so he let the piece remain as it was. The Rondo wasn’t entirely without merit; in its own way it contained just as much feeling as the previous movement, but with some humor as well. He’d started writing it as a Scherzo and evolved into its current form; far less of a joke and much, much longer. Today, he almost enjoyed playing the thing. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it tomorrow.

   This sonata, which was what he believed it would become, did not feel like his...even though it was something he’d created, gradually developed via warm-ups and midnight humming into his portable bedside tape recorder. The work might come to nothing. He had no idea how to conclude it. He leaned forward until his forehead touched the white keys, hammers hitting strings like suggestions and pressed down on the sostenuto pedal, loving the empty, open sound. As if the piano was inhaling with him; scared and thrilled and lost in an old dream.

   The Schubert was tricky, so it had to be run through at least once. He could play the Kinderszenen in his sleep, but opted for practising that again as well. Next came the Liszt. Funny how he still remembered the whole thing. He would play them all once more at the venue, on their piano. He would play out this feeling until he was empty enough to let go.

   Dafna walked in after another hour, carrying the garment bag containing his suit for this evening’s concert. “Car will be here in thirty. Are you taking your suit and changing there? Or are you wearing it now?”

   “Wearing it now.”

   “Smart. Bring less.”

   “I have something to confess.” He played a few measures of Bach’s ‘Prelude and Fugue No. 15 in G Major’ from the _Well-Tempered Clavier_ , ended it with sprightly flourish of his hands. “I lied to you.”

   “About what?” Dafna busied herself with opening bag. The zipper jammed halfway, so she had him hold the hook while she tugged. “Ugh. I just closed this.”

   When she finally looked at him directly, he smiled. After a moment, it became more of a grimace than a smile. It grew and grew, his eyes shrinking into slits.

   “Okay, Elli. Out with it.”

   “I was alone last night.”

   “Okay,” she repeated, disappeared briefly into the hallway to hang the now-liberated suit. He waited, biting his lips and looking at his palms.

   Dafna came back and silently closed the back lid of the piano, then stood there, arms crossed. Elio leaned forward.

   “I got in, dropped off my stuff, went into the city to buy some CDs. And then I came home. There was no one here, no overnight guests. Just little old me.” His mouth twisted to the side.

   She undid her braid and ran her hands through her hair. It was silky and fine. Elio continued.

   “My photo is all over Tower by the way, the Stephane shoot. The one where I look like a vampire.”

   Still she said nothing. Dafna turned around, holding her hair tie up between her thumb and pointer finger. Elio stood and took it, carefully separating her hair into three sections and braiding. It was a large-scale version of the string bracelets he used to make for everyone with Marzia, a pastime both quiet and calming. When the day came to lose the ones on his wrist, before he was to start training at the Paris Conservatoire, he’d let Dafna have the honors. She’d taken the scissors from him and cut them off with one decisive snip. He kept the bracelets in the pages of a book, not concerned that he was ruining the spine. In this case, sentiment won over practicality.

   “Why is tonight’s show even listed on the posters, anyway? It’s closed to the general public.”

   Each word in that last sentence slowed, weighed down by his lackluster evasiveness. He didn’t ever lie to her... or rather, he made it a practice not to. Everyone needed at least one person to be truthful to, one or two. If only to decide, get help deciding, what was actually true. He finished braiding, and looped the hair tie around the ends three times.

   She turned around.

   “People want what they’re denied.” Dafna said, finally, after feeling down the length of her braid. “Human nature. Why were you at Tower?”

   “I wanted to buy the new Bernstein. But with those photos everywhere I had to stay out of the Classical section.”

   “I’ll pick it up for you.” She coughed, a scratch in her throat that grew to something heavier, and Elio put his arm around her and rubbed her back. Dafna stared up at him. “Why did you lie about having someone over?”

   “I don’t know.” He smiled again, biting his thumb.

   “Really? You always know. You never not know.”

   For Dafna, a world where Elio didn’t know why he made choices was treacherous. For Elio, the idea that he knew anything ever was laughable. He doubled down on the truth.

   “I came home, I read, I spoke with Lina. That was my night. I don’t know why I lied.”

   “So whose pink bra was that?” Dafna looked towards the stairs, as if expecting to see the aforementioned undergarment slide down the banister to say hello.

   Elio scratched the back of his neck. “Lina’s. She always slipped it into my luggage before I traveled.”

   “So,” she sighed. “A masturbatory aid?”

   “It’s a joke. She gave it to me two trips ago, she must’ve forgotten to take it back.”

   Dafna frowned and Elio glanced at her; settling into her expression. “What?”

   “Is that why you had the lube out?” Off of Elio’s nod, her mouth joined the frown, lips pressing into a small almost-circle. “Why don’t you use spit to jerk off like everybody else?”

   Elio raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Because I’m not a peasant?”

   He sat back down at the piano and motioned with his head for Dafna to join him. She did, and tentatively began to pick out ‘En bateau’ from Debussy’s _Petite Suite_. Elio joined her, matching her tentative tempo. They played several measures, until Dafna stopped, putting her head on his shoulder.

   “I’m sorry about Christian. I know I only saw him a handful of times but...” she stopped to breathe through the sudden tightness in her throat. “He made an impression on me. He was a beautiful person. Inside and out.”

   He covered her hand with his. “He was.”

   “I’m sorry about Lina also. I know you don’t think I am. But I am.”

   They blinked at one another, quiet and soft.

   “I know, Pal.”

   “You should go change. The suit’s in the front closet.”

   He sighed. “I will.”

   “Oh.” She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me, did you see? No more dropping off laundry! There’s a washer and dryer installed upstairs. I did a load last week, they work great.”

   Elio played a few lines of his sonata's finale. The second part wasn’t clicking. “Do you know of any sonata finales that are fugues?”

   “Post-Baroque?” Dafna tried to keep her disappointment at his lack of reaction from bleeding into her question. She didn’t think anything could be more thrilling than not having to go to a laundromat to fold your underpants in front of strangers. “No.”

   “Is that too big a rule break, do you think?”

   She shook her head. “I don’t know. A sonata is just that: a song. It could be whatever you want.”

   “Je me sens... tellement bizarre putain. I keep constantly catching myself spacing out. Papa blames you for that by the way—for ruining my vocabulary with slang.” He laughed, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, twisting around on the bench to rise slowly to standing.

   “Yeah, right. Uncle Sammy loves me, and is perfectly aware that language is a living thing.”

   Elio tapped his piano lightly with the tips of his fingers. “I was having an old recurring dream this morning. And then you asked me about ‘Romance Oubliée’. I thought I should maybe not hide the fact that I play sometimes so I don’t have to feel emotions directly. That I use my playing as proxy.” Elio scratched his neck and grinned stupidly at her. “Is that fucked up? It is, isn’t it?” He waved his hand at nothing. “I’m a mess.”

  He took off before she could answer, grabbing his suit from the closet and running upstairs to change. Dafna stayed by the piano, looking down at the keys, then closed the lid gently.

  Elio returned not long after, bounding down the stairs, now clad in the bespoke Armani and blue socks. He took a moment to tuck his shirt into his pants, then held his hands out, as if to say, _Here I am. What do you think?_

   Dafna bounded over to him and took hold of his arms. She cupped his elbows and wiggled him back and forth, shaking a giggle out of him, then a long, drawn-out _ahahahahaaaaaaaaaa_.

   “Luigi! You’re a’beautiful. Like al dente linguini!” she sing-songed.

   He rolled his eyes. “Why do I always have to be fooooood? Why can’t I ever be Mario?”

   “Because I’m a’Mario.” She squeezed his cheeks, mirrored back his pout. Her face eventually settled into a clear-eyed fondness. “When you were a baby, you were my favorite plaything. So fat and smiley. I never needed a doll, I had you. My little pal.”

   “I’m so glad I have no memory of this.”

   “Oh my God, you were soooo cute. You looked like you were made of pudding. Where did it all go?” She pretended to inspect his torso, his legs. “You became asparagus.”

   Elio hugged her, his arms curling up from below, between her arms and ribs, like he was still shorter—even though he hadn’t been for a long time.

   “I love you lots. You’ll always be food.”

   He laughed into her hair. “But I don’t want to be food.”

   Dafna tilted her face back, biting her lip, serious once more. She watched him for half a minute and he tried, well and truly tried, to be perfectly transparent.

   “What emotions are you trying to avoid? Not grief. Forgive me, Elli. You’re not usually vague. No one loves specificity as much as you.”

   Outside, a car drove past blaring Cameo’s _Candy_. It bought Elio some time, because Dafna laughed and so did he.

   “That song is so stupid.”

   “I love it,” he said.

   “I know you do. It’s one of the very best things about you. You are not a snob.” Dafna unbuttoned his jacket to pull down his dress shirt, straighten him out. “So where are they now? The first.”

   “Who?” His mouth moved of its own accord, almost like he was swishing liquid. He knew exactly who she was asking about, it was there in the weight of her gaze and in his own sudden flare of nerves. “Oh… him. Here.”

   “Here,” her eyes widen as her voice drops. “...as in Brooklyn?”

   “No.”

   “Here in New York?”

   He nodded once.

   “But you haven’t seen him since...”

   He nodded again and offered her another wan smile. He had hundreds at the ready. Elio looked at the ceiling, his eyebrows knitting upwards. There was no call for a real answer so he didn’t provide one. He shook the hair out of his face and bit his lip. “I never felt like I would see him again, until last night. I just had a feeling. Like nervous exhaustion, I couldn’t shake it.”

   “A panic attack?”

   “No, because it felt good.” He took a deep breath, deciding to clarify. “Sorry. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was all… good.” Elio shrugged haplessly. “And like you said, I’m never going to see him again. So.”

   “Okay.” She nodded. “Why did it end?”

   “Because summer was over.”

   This time, when Elio shrugged, he threw his arms up, giving her yet another one of his too-tight grins. It transformed into his usual quiet laugh, because he absolutely had to punctuate the end of that sentence with laughter and not tears. He was an adult. He owned a home. He could cry over music still, the loss of a friend, the overwhelming feeling of being in a crowd, charging over a now-obsolete checkpoint. Over very nearly everything, but not this. He had wept and rejoiced already, and the time for examining the feeling had passed. To keep thinking about that summer would mean changing it. He didn’t wish to.

   “Well, I lied too. My first love was in college,” Dafna said, letting go of his waist and looking at the floor. Elio knew that Dafna had little patience for tears, particularly her own, which made things hard for her. Because both Dafna and Elio shared a predilection for emotion. They were both easily moved. But unlike him, she had not made peace with her nature. So she stared at floors, his feet, anywhere but his face.

   He waited.

   She brought her hand up to her eyes. Removed it after a moment, to squint towards him. “It’s an embarrassing story, and I’m never going to tell you. That’s another lie, because I’m probably going to tell you. Just give me time and one day I’ll blurt it all out.”

   “Didi.” Elio pulled at the air on each side of her face and on cue, as if this were some long-standing routine, she grinned widely. An idea struck him. “I’m going to have to change the program.”

   “No,” she yelled, slapping his arm. “Why? Noooooo. Don’t change anything. I had the copies made already.”

   “I’m going to do 'O pourquoi donc' at the end. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to them. FIAF can handle the programs.”

   “How do you even have it memorized already? Ugh, nevermind. Don’t tell me.”

   Dafna turned her head and sighed at her reflection in the mirror. Elio watched himself kiss her cheek. They stood, as if posing for a photograph, giving the mirror identical buck-toothed smiles and sniffing like rabbits. Elio leaned down to rest his head on hers.

   “We are very attractive,” she said.

   “The most.”

   “Do you think I should get my teeth fixed?”

   He frowned, looking her over, “What are you fixing?”

   “I have actual buck teeth.”

   “But you’re a rabbit. You need them. For the lettuce.”

   Dafna didn’t tell him then that she didn’t want to keep working for him, even though she adored him. Or that she didn’t want to go back to school, or even keep fucking her boyfriend, who wasn’t the smartest but was usually sweet. She didn’t want to write a dissertation, or live with her parents. What she wanted was to have choices; and the worst part was that she knew that the choices were there already. She was lucky. She had all the security to decide poorly, then bounce back anyway.

   It didn’t matter, though. Dafna was depressed. She thought she needed change because she had outgrown her skin. That wasn’t true. She had outgrown nothing.

   Elio fiddled with his buttons and his hair. This would be the time, the perfect time, to speak to her cousin. To say: I would like to jump into a river wearing a backpack full of bricks. She wouldn’t, of course, but she wanted to. Instead she’ll write him a letter in two years from Paris and she’ll move into this house, to the basement apartment; she’ll stay for longer than expected. An acquaintance will say at a family dinner, in an obnoxiously familial way, _I never knew Dafna was that troubled_ as if she wasn’t sitting right there. And Elio, who cared little for conflict, will sit up and put a cigarette out in their guest’s post-dinner cake slice. Extend his hand to her and say, “Let’s go home.”

   In front of the mirror, gazing at his reflection, Elio had little on his mind, and what was there, he hid. He misinterpreted Dafna’s glances his way, assumed she would guess, mock him for his feelings; and then, upon seeing he was not in the right frame of mind for humor, push at him to explain. And he wouldn’t be able to say that unseen bruises were being pressed, because that would mean admitting their existence. The wounds had been there for years, and confessing as much would make him feel the loss all over again. He knew he was supposed to. Papa said he should, always. But he couldn’t bring himself to be brave enough to feel that way again, like he’d done at seventeen. Crying himself out and packing it away.

   He focused on minutiae: the loose string dangling from his sleeve, the fold of his blue socks, breathing past the odd anxiety fluttering in his chest. He buttoned and unbuttoned the top of his shirt and shook out his hair. Patted it carefully to the side.

   “I was told I should wear a hat with this suit.”

   Dafna mimed a dry-heave. “Ugh, don’t be the hat guy.” She pointed at his feet. “You really ought to wear snow boots and bring your shoes with you.”

   “Is it snowing?” He spun around and glided over to the window. Across the street, the building’s super salted the sidewalk, with help from a couple neighborhood boys.

   “There’s going to be a huge snowstorm tomorrow, maybe tonight. So drinks can’t go too late or you’ll never get home.”

   “No chance of that. It’s all logistics. Nothing Clem can’t handle on her own.” He walked back to the foyer and sighed at his appearance, pushing back the curls that kept falling in his eyes. “I need a haircut.”

   “I like it. You look like that guy in that band. The Australian one.”

   He blinked at himself; sick of his reflection. “Which one?”

   “I forget. He has that song.”

   Elio waited and when no further details came, rolled his eyes. “Can you remind me to buy vitamins? This pallor of mine makes me look like a consumptive.”

   “Will do. Should I bag up your snow boots?”

   “Naaah. It’s never as bad as they predict. I’ll be fine.”

   Elio stretched out his arms, rotated his wrists again, while scowling at his cuffs. Dafna grabbed his arm.

   “Is that a Swatch?” she asked.

   He pulled his sleeve to his elbow, held up his forearm. “This?”

   “How has that survived? The strap on mine broke.”

   “You get a new strap.”

   She peered at the watch face. “Oh… is that what you do? How can you even read that? It’s all squiggle-people.”

   “I know where the hands go. This was designed by Keith Haring, an—.”

   “Please, no Artists of Today lecture. I know who Keith Haring is.”

   Dafna scrunched up her nose and pulled back, still holding his wrist. He spun her around and she turned, slow and careful, her arm held out with a dancer’s precision.

   “What?”

   “Do you want to hear something gross?” She coughed into the crook of her elbow.

   “Toujours.”

   “I like that damp, mildewy skin smell under a watch wristband.”

   He scrunched up his face. “Really?”

   “Yeah. I find it...reassuring.”

   Elio removed the watch and held out his wrist.

   “Ew, no. I don’t want to smell your skin.”

   The phone rang in the kitchen. She raised her eyebrows. “That’ll be the car. I’ll meet you at the venue.”

   Elio made to put his watch back on but instead stared at it in his hand, his focus elsewhere. Time was on his side, time after time, time won’t give him time. Dante to Farinata: _El par che voi veggiate, se ben odo, dinanzi quel che ’l tempo seco adduce, e nel presente tenete altro modo._

   His wrist looked paler than the rest of him; sparsely-furred and too slim. And, at the spot where his watch face usually sat, whiter even than the underbelly of his arm.

   “Dafna.”

   “Yeah?”

   “Can you leave my watch upstairs, by my bed, before you go?”

   “Okay.”

   He put on his coat and grabbed his duffel bag. Opened the door to the vestibule and walked out into the day, pretending the action was bold and decisive. Like parachuting out of an airplane, or running after a train. Not like what it was, one more step in the day’s carefully-laid-out itinerary. This was just a rush down his stoop into a waiting car that would take him to a meeting, a rehearsal and a performance, then another meeting. Which would lead to further meetings, meeting about meetings, neverending meetings.

   Elio would have to find the time to write today, later, work on the sonata: figure out the fourth part, or maybe clarify the first. The themes seemed clear enough, in his head, but they kept veering off into confusion. Distracted by reminders of a strong L in a written inscription, a small pebble in his shoe that had no business being there. The smell in the air was faint and near-indescribable—snow.

   It was too late to go back inside and get his Oblique Strategies deck, although he had wanted to show Dafna. It would have to wait until he got back into town. He hated waiting. He disliked stretches of unoccupied time. He had his music. He had a couple of books he didn’t want to read. He would have to bear the lag, until he was past the minute hands and disquiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to: Cheshirecatstrut for grammar beta reading this like a champion, Etal for assistance with omniscience, tpmbouquins and Louka for their stellar French translation and thelovelybess and sedregina for their excellent Italian translation. Making sure that regionalisms and character are consistent are super important to me, so their work was invaluable. Last but not least, Cousin Ber for putting up with my near constant bitching about this chapter. Actually, all of you for putting up with my near constant bitching about this chapter. This is the most difficult section of the series and you are all very patient and kind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading my series despite its structural fuckery.
> 
> Special thanks to cheshirecatstrut for the grammar beta read on this section. All remaining errors are mine and mine alone.


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